- Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch CTH460 http://www.wacom.com/bamboo/bamboo_pen_touch.php http://reviews.cnet.com/pointing-devices/wacom-bamboo-pen-and/4505-3147_7-33772151.html New Page ... I ran out of time to edit this today.. Just wrote it all down ... Ill be back The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch CTH460 is a USB system that will allow the user to utilize gestures on the touch pad much like the new touch pads on your laptops. It will allow you to rotate, magnifier, select, drag, etc... The new Pen will allow you to make you documents personal by inserting you handwriting. Standard CCTV systems are large and not portable. At 20-25 pounds with a 17 inch monitor the markets idea of portable is not the same as my students.
The Wacom Bamboo Touch Pad must be used with Windows 7 if you want to utilize the writing features. The directions given in the box, as well as online are very vague. There is a demo and set up feature to teach you how the functions work but it does not describe how the pen can be used in handwriting recognition, picture editing, or editing existing documents using your own handwriting. The website states you will need additional software that supports the tablet features. So where do you find this software. I don't know because they don't tell you. If a google search did not bring up the information I requested. So here are the programs it works great with.
- Window 7 ( handwriting recognition) - Office 2007 - Paint - Adobe Products for picture editing and text editing.
Note paint ad Adobe are the programs that will need to be utilized if you want to insert your own handwriting..... You will have to change the extension of your document to a .tif, .gif, or a jpg.
So what can it do?
The Touch Pad has two features: 1. The pad operates as a touch pad similar to the ones found on a netbook. Therefore it will allow the uses to use hand gestures to enlarge the view on the screen, scroll up/down, and left right. You can set different hand gestures and taps to activate menus or applications you set. The touch pad functions as a mouse to you can put your mouse in a drawer because its not not needed. Personal I prefer a touch pad to a mouse as you won't run out of desk space as you might while moving a mouse. The finger tap setting are adjustable by number of taps and speed.
2. The touch pad will work as a tablet so you can use this feature to insert text into your document instead of a keyboard. This works only in Windows 7 as if supports a tablet so you will find a small window that will appear when you tap the place you want to insert text. Note that your handwriting will appear however when it is inserted into the document it appears as text not your handwriting when you are using Word of filling in text boxes on the Internet. Windows 7 does a nice job of handwriting recognition but if you find you are having difficulty you can always train the program to recognize your handwriting. The other really nice benefit of the Tablet is that the pen can also be used as a mouse.The tablet feature and the touch pad work separately. One the pen is close to the pad it disables the touch pad features. The pen in my opinion is a much nicer feature. It will allow the user to drag and drop, insert text, draw or edit a document, and move to a given application.
Applications for Visually Impaired Students
- It is an excellent tool to teach Visually Impaired Students the hand eye coordination needed to use a CCTV. It works well on all applications including games on the Internet. I used the pen and tablet with an online puzzle. Its a natural thing to watch our hand while we are writing. Using the Pen to move puzzle pieces into place assisted the student in learning that he needed to watch the screen, position of his cursor on the screen, and not his hand to complete the task.
- The pen and tablet also assisted Visually Impaired students in locating information on a page based on location. When you are using screen magnification at 4x-6x it is easy to lose your place as you are only looking as 1 piece of the screen. I often explain this to students by folding paper. For example if you are using 4x magnification for the paper into to quarters etc... (Windows 7 magnification does a nice job of visually demonstrating this. While the magnifier is set to 6x on full screen hit the following keys ctrl, shift, space. The screen will zoom out and displace a yellow square to show your where magnified area of the screen you are currently looking at.) The tablet feature functions differently. If you look at your screen you will see the start button in the bottom left, the menu bar on the top right, the minimize/maximize in the top right, an the time in the bottom left. The Tablet is sectioned the same was if you move your pen to the bottom left of the tablet your screen will move to view the start button. This appears to be similar to setting targets in Zoomtext. I tell my students this feature is similar to using a monocular/telescope, you need to spot the general locate of where the sign is first before you focus and search. This feature really helped my student keep up with the peers in computer class. When the teacher stated move to the menu bar the student was able to move directly to the location with out the continuous dragging of the mouse in several directions. The pen does not need to contact the pad to work as a mouse only hover. So my students used the pen to track a line of text must like a student would use their finger to keep their place on their book. The panning was smooth and it was obvious the pen and tablet assisted with orientation to a page as well as keeping ones place. While using and uploaded work sheet my student were able to follow along in class and take notes with the other students. They read the material on the screen while tracking with the pen. When they were required to insert and answer they tapped once on the blank and wrote the answer.
Lastly the has possibilities for Orientation and Mobility The student can adapt google maps and insert information on to the map sure as landmarks, traffic lights, or stop signs but drawing them on the map.
Here's how...
1. Look up location on google maps 2. Enlarge map to desired magnification for street view 3. View map as whole screen 4. Capture screen 9hit print screen button) 5. Open paint. 6. Click paste 7. Save document with desired extension. ( I usually use .tif) 8. Then you can insert information on to our map using the pen, shapes, colors ect.
- Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch CTH460
http://www.wacom.com/bamboo/bamboo_pen_touch.php
http://reviews.cnet.com/pointing-devices/wacom-bamboo-pen-and/4505-3147_7-33772151.html
New Page ... I ran out of time to edit this today.. Just wrote it all down ... Ill be back
The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch CTH460 is a USB system that will allow the user to utilize gestures on the touch pad much like the new touch pads on your laptops. It will allow you to rotate, magnifier, select, drag, etc... The new Pen will allow you to make you documents personal by inserting you handwriting. Standard CCTV systems are large and not portable. At 20-25 pounds with a 17 inch monitor the markets idea of portable is not the same as my students.
The Wacom Bamboo Touch Pad must be used with Windows 7 if you want to utilize the writing features. The directions given in the box, as well as online are very vague. There is a demo and set up feature to teach you how the functions work but it does not describe how the pen can be used in handwriting recognition, picture editing, or editing existing documents using your own handwriting. The website states you will need additional software that supports the tablet features. So where do you find this software. I don't know because they don't tell you. If a google search did not bring up the information I requested. So here are the programs it works great with.
- Window 7 ( handwriting recognition)
- Office 2007
- Paint
- Adobe Products for picture editing and text editing.
Note paint ad Adobe are the programs that will need to be utilized if you want to insert your own handwriting.....
You will have to change the extension of your document to a .tif, .gif, or a jpg.
So what can it do?
The Touch Pad has two features:
1. The pad operates as a touch pad similar to the ones found on a netbook. Therefore it will allow the uses to use hand gestures to enlarge the view on the screen, scroll up/down, and left right. You can set different hand gestures and taps to activate menus or applications you set. The touch pad functions as a mouse to you can put your mouse in a drawer because its not not needed. Personal I prefer a touch pad to a mouse as you won't run out of desk space as you might while moving a mouse. The finger tap setting are adjustable by number of taps and speed.
2. The touch pad will work as a tablet so you can use this feature to insert text into your document instead of a keyboard. This works only in Windows 7 as if supports a tablet so you will find a small window that will appear when you tap the place you want to insert text. Note that your handwriting will appear however when it is inserted into the document it appears as text not your handwriting when you are using Word of filling in text boxes on the Internet. Windows 7 does a nice job of handwriting recognition but if you find you are having difficulty you can always train the program to recognize your handwriting. The other really nice benefit of the Tablet is that the pen can also be used as a mouse. The tablet feature and the touch pad work separately. One the pen is close to the pad it disables the touch pad features. The pen in my opinion is a much nicer feature. It will allow the user to drag and drop, insert text, draw or edit a document, and move to a given application.
Applications for Visually Impaired Students
- It is an excellent tool to teach Visually Impaired Students the hand eye coordination needed to use a CCTV. It works well on all applications including games on the Internet. I used the pen and tablet with an online puzzle. Its a natural thing to watch our hand while we are writing. Using the Pen to move puzzle pieces into place assisted the student in learning that he needed to watch the screen, position of his cursor on the screen, and not his hand to complete the task.
- The pen and tablet also assisted Visually Impaired students in locating information on a page based on location. When you are using screen magnification at 4x-6x it is easy to lose your place as you are only looking as 1 piece of the screen. I often explain this to students by folding paper. For example if you are using 4x magnification for the paper into to quarters etc... (Windows 7 magnification does a nice job of visually demonstrating this. While the magnifier is set to 6x on full screen hit the following keys ctrl, shift, space. The screen will zoom out and displace a yellow square to show your where magnified area of the screen you are currently looking at.) The tablet feature functions differently. If you look at your screen you will see the start button in the bottom left, the menu bar on the top right, the minimize/maximize in the top right, an the time in the bottom left. The Tablet is sectioned the same was if you move your pen to the bottom left of the tablet your screen will move to view the start button. This appears to be similar to setting targets in Zoomtext. I tell my students this feature is similar to using a monocular/telescope, you need to spot the general locate of where the sign is first before you focus and search. This feature really helped my student keep up with the peers in computer class. When the teacher stated move to the menu bar the student was able to move directly to the location with out the continuous dragging of the mouse in several directions. The pen does not need to contact the pad to work as a mouse only hover. So my students used the pen to track a line of text must like a student would use their finger to keep their place on their book. The panning was smooth and it was obvious the pen and tablet assisted with orientation to a page as well as keeping ones place. While using and uploaded work sheet my student were able to follow along in class and take notes with the other students. They read the material on the screen while tracking with the pen. When they were required to insert and answer they tapped once on the blank and wrote the answer.
Lastly the has possibilities for Orientation and Mobility
The student can adapt google maps and insert information on to the map sure as landmarks, traffic lights, or stop signs but drawing them on the map.
Here's how...
1. Look up location on google maps
2. Enlarge map to desired magnification for street view
3. View map as whole screen
4. Capture screen 9hit print screen button)
5. Open paint.
6. Click paste
7. Save document with desired extension. ( I usually use .tif)
8. Then you can insert information on to our map using the pen, shapes, colors ect.